Here's a lesson that every child arguing with his parents learns before she's out of footie pajamas: ...

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Here's a lesson that every child arguing with his parents learns before she's out of footie pajamas: you have to back up anger with reasonable demands. This has been immortalized in a zillion cute-kid Youtube videos—negotiation is key. You can't just throw a temper tantrum. You have to discuss. You have to list what you want: access to cupcakes, a later bedtime, or full access to Mom's iPad. And while this situation is adorable when the aggrieved party in question is a diplomatic three-year-old and the Powers That Be are exhausted parents, it's decidedly not adorable when the aggrieved party is the (very much adult) people of France and the Powers That Be are bratty monarchs. In 1789 the French people had been screaming and yelling about how much they disliked their king and queen and about how they wanted a revolution. And finally people were listening (violent mobs tend to get that reaction). Now they had to say something smart so that everybody would take them seriously and not assume that they were just a bunch of guillotine-happy hooligans. They needed a declaration—something to sum up what this revolution was really all about. Not a declaration of independence, because (a) that title was taken already, and (b) they weren't declaring themselves independent from anything, they were still planning on being thoroughly French. They just wanted more rights than the king was currently giving them. So instead they came up with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which is kind of like if the Declaration of Independence and the American Bill of Rights had a sassy French baby together. It lists the rights that the French revolutionaries believed all male, French citizens should have in their government and does so in a strong declarative format (learned from those brave American revolutionaries). The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was the brainchild of the Marquis de Lafayette, who'd been a big part of the French military help in the American Revolutionary War, and Thomas Jefferson, who had some prior experience writing documents that outlined the basis for a new form of government that didn't include monarchs. So did it work? Did the French people get full access to cupcakes and a later bedtime—er—equality and fair taxation? Did they, like the Americans, get rid of their king and start a new government based on equality and democracy? Well…it's complicated. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was a success and remains the cornerstone of the present-day French Republic, but their revolution didn't go as smoothly as the one in America. In France there were a lot more beheadings, then a dictator,…and then some more kings, and then an emperor. It was messy and unpleasant, but they had good ideas all along as evidenced in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. So they get an A+ for ideas and an F for poor behavior and crazy leaders.